Ruminant animals, including cattle, sheep, giraffe, deer, goat, bison and camels, and more particularly cattle and sheep, comprise an important group of animals that require periodic administration of medicines and nutrients. The medicines and nutrients are administered for the treatment and alleviation of various medical and infectious related conditions and generally for better health. Ruminants have a complex three or four compartment stomach. The rumen, the largest of the stomach compartments, serves as an important location for receiving and passing medicines and nutrients into other compartments, including the abomasum and the intestine. Presently, ruminants are treated by repeated administrations of medicines and nutrients at frequent time intervals. This form of treatment is inconvenient and expensive, and it does not lend itself to good reliable therapy. Additionally, medicines and nutrients are administered orally in the form of a bolus to ruminants. However, bolus form of therapy, like the repeated dose mode of administration, does not lend itself to widely-practiced and acceptable therapy. That is, ruminants regurgitate what they swallow, they chew their cuds, and they spit out conventional boluses quickly after administration.
There is, therefore, in view of the above presentation, a pressing need for a therapeutic delivery system for use in ruminant therapy that will, after a single administration, efficiently dispense medicines and nutrients over a prolonged period of time. There also is a pressing need for a therapeutic delivery system for prolonged releasing of a medicine or a nutrient at a controlled rate in the rumen, by a delivery system that is swallowed easily by the ruminant and remains in the rumen for a long period of time without being regurgitated or otherwise eliminated from the rumen.